Are We Living in a Simulated Multiverse? | Unveiled

Are We Living in a Simulated Multiverse?

What if everything you know – from the people you love, to the activities you do, and even your very own body and mind – is part of an expansive and immersive illusion to fool you (and everyone else) about reality? As we’ve found out in previous videos, scientists are now increasingly convinced that there’s more to this universe than just this universe. And the consideration of multiple universes, in one way or another, is now “par for the course” for most theoretical thinkers. But, meanwhile, humanity has witnessed so many great advances in the field of computing over the last century or so… enabling us to create massive and simulated worlds of our own, in the name of entertainment, gaming, virtual reality, and AI. Could it ever be possible, then, that we aren’t just building these worlds… but are actually living in one, ourselves?

This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; are we living in a simulated multiverse?

The concept of a simulated reality has a perhaps surprisingly long history. It was first seriously thought on by the French philosopher René Descartes, in the seventeenth century. Among many things, Descartes imagined an evil demon figure using great and ominous power to deceive unsuspecting humans, by projecting a kind of unreal reality. A modern take on Descartes’ evil demon argument has since been formulated by the Oxford philosopher, Nick Bostrom, in his 2003 paper on what’s now known as the Simulation Hypothesis. The premise behind Bostrom’s hypothesis is that all of reality could be an artificial sim most likely run by an advanced supercomputer or civilization. In pop culture, the 1999 movie “The Matrix” offers perhaps the most famous use of this idea, where humans live in an artificially constructed world run by highly advanced machines.

But putting wild, blockbuster imagination aside, could this really be what’s happening to us right now? Well, it depends.

Any civilization capable of running such a sim must first have reached a level of technological advancement enabling them to create one. Remember, we’re talking total control here, over everything from the smallest atom to the largest galaxy. And, to apply all that to the multiverse model, the sim controllers would need to have built a kind of endless loop into their system, too, to generate all the infinite possibilities of multiple realities. Such a civilization would also need to have generated a convincing means of simulated consciousness, however (to match natural, genuine consciousness) so that inhabitants of the sim - in this case, us - remain totally unsuspecting. The idea entirely depends, then, on whether such an advanced and capable civilization could ever exist. But a simulated multiverse has certainly been theorized before, including as part of the theoretical physicist, Brian Greene’s, nine multiverse types.

So, what would a sim multiverse actually mean? Well, the advanced civilizations needed to run them would firstly require access to enormous amounts of computational resources - in their world, the real world. Some possibilities for obtaining this include the building of a civilization that’s based on nanomachines spreading out forever… or on giant megastructures like Matrioshka brains where the entire energy output of a star is harvested to power a stellar computer. Pool all that power together into one single, spectacular, generator machine, and a custom-built multiverse might be possible - in theory. Although, of course, that multiverse could never truly encapsulate all of reality, seeing as the controllers themselves would exist outside of it.

It places a different slant on the overall idea, however, wherein humanity, the universe, and all of reality as we know it, exists as just one simulation among potentially millions of others - much as with various simulator video games in our world. Everything we know, and can ever know, could then exist on some disc somewhere. Or as part of some kind of expansion pack. Which is a pretty frightening thought, especially were that disc ever to get lost, scratched, snapped or thrown away!

It's a somewhat outlandish way to view life, certainly. But - thanks in part to our own, rapid, technological advancement in the past few decades - support for the simulation hypothesis in general has mounted in recent years. Including, famously, from Neil deGrasse Tyson and Elon Musk. Physicists generally interpret the simulation hypothesis by viewing the universe as a flow of information as opposed to energy. This shift was particularly pushed by one John Wheeler, a pioneer of quantum computing, in the late 1970s. In almost all models, though, reality - true reality - needs to exist as though on another, higher level. A different dimension or a different plane of existence. It’s only from there that this sim, our world, could possibly be born… although there are various “down the rabbit hole” theories to propose that, actually, a sim might be possible on our level, too, so that we end up with simulated realities inside simulated realities, on and on forever.

Clearly… if it is true, it’s pretty advanced stuff. Down here, though, on the ground (so to speak) we know that there are endless mysteries and inconsistencies about our reality that could quite simply be explained away if we just blamed it on the controllers of the sim. The many wonders of quantum mechanics, especially, would begin to look different from our point of view. For example, in one version of the multiverse, all moments of choice or chance - even at the quantum level - are actually the genesis for another new timeline and therefore another world. This is already an eerie thought, but in a simulated hypothesis it begins to take on a different meaning. Now, those quantum splits are controlled by whatever runs the sim, in a similar way as to how we press buttons to make even tiny choices for characters in video game sims, today. Perhaps more so than with any other multiverse model, the simulated multiverse certainly does require some sort of higher power - you might call it a god - to make it work.

If we were to accept the simulated multiverse, then, how should we go about our lives with that knowledge? One suggestion might be to strive for greater heights in this world (as we understand it) to better our position and therefore to lessen the likelihood of ourselves getting turned off. It’s an idea that’s been mused by, amongst others, the economist Robin Hanson… but it’s an approach that could also inevitably lead to a selfish existence for all, where our personal wants and goals would trump everything else. And perhaps that particular reality wouldn’t function all that well for all that long, before chaos took hold.

Another aspect to consider is, should we even be trying to prove a simulated reality at all… if, indeed, that is what we’re living in? According to some interpretations of the model, this could spell instant trouble. The idea being that if we were to somehow know the sim was true, then that act of knowing could either end our simulated existence or crash the simulation itself. In other words, we may have effectively completed the game… or corrupted it… which, in either case, would result in game over.

But finally, to be clear, the simulated multiverse is still an idea, only. There is very little beyond our own imaginative theories that we can use to support this view as a true way of the world. The simulation hypothesis, in general, isn’t without its fair share of skeptics or detractors, either. For one, the Harvard physicist Lisa Randall has continually rallied against the idea. One argument against the simulation might also boil down to the notion that humans are inherently motivated by self-interest… but rather than this being a strategy to survive in a simulated reality, we could ask why a higher species would bother simulating us in the first place? If you had all that power, would you remake humans in the twenty-first century? Or would you do something else?

There have been various studies, too, to show how completely and extremely difficult it would be to simulate even a tiny, tiny part of this reality. Of course, on the flip side of that, if the simulated multiverse were true, then it probably would appear impossible from our lowly perspective and position. Ultimately, then, it’s a question of what we’re capable of. And of what anything is capable of. As we move through the twenty-first century, our computing powers are predicted to increase so that within just one generation’s time humans will look back at today and wonder how the heck we ever got anything done. But, even so, there are giant strides between that… and becoming a next-level civilization with the multiverse in the palm of its hand.

If no civilization or group has ever made that jump, then no… we aren’t living in a simulated multiverse. But, if such power is ever achievable, then in a universe (or multiverse) of infinite possibilities, perhaps there is something out there that’s guiding our every move. Maybe.